Two papers of note were presented in the evening session (which was really a late afternoon session): Ted Carruth did a very nice presentation regarding the ‘reading culture of early Christians’.  Quite fascinating.  And the second was also very challenging.  Paul Jacobs did a great job in arguing for full publication of archaeological digs- online.  And he has done that very thing with Tell Halif.  He asserted that full publication online was the only way to insure that data be preserved and made available to other and future scholars.

I’d love to see this sort of thing done quite widely.

After the session Brandon Wason and I went to dinner and his very kind wife joined us too.  Here are some of the photos from it (or to be specific- the last 7).   Finally, some final shots around the hotel and the last purchase before I head home in the morning.

Overall the meeting was brilliant.  The location was excellent and the papers were above average.  Some even brilliant.  But as always the best part of the meeting was seeing old friends and making the acquaintance of new.

Three papers were presented at the afternoon session today. The first, by Steve Cook on the ‘Omride dynasty’. He concludes, at the end of a well argued paper, that the Omride dynasty is an indeterminate entity. The Biblical sources and the extra-biblical historical sources don’t mesh and so we can’t be very definitive as to what it was or even who it was.

The second presentation was a biographical look at Israel Finkelstein and a presentation of his ‘low chronology’. This chronology was called into question by Fred Downing who used Beth Shemesh as a test case. Downing asserts that the Finkelstein-ian notion that there were no monumental structures in the 10th century is disproved at Beth Shemesh. I’m curious to see what Israel has to say about this.

Finally, Pat Scott described the Herodian port at Ceasarea.

In all it was a good session and so I’m off now to the next. More anon.

UPDATE: I’ve learned that Finkelstein addressed Beth Shemesh in a PEQ essay (2002)- which one should see in order to evaluate the correctness (or perhaps better incorrectness) of Prof. Downing’s thesis.

During lunch I ran down to the Luce Center here in Atlanta.  In case the name doesn’t ring a bell, it’s the headquarters of the Society of Biblical Literature.  So here’s what the sacred temple looks like:

The center is next to Emory University-

Meanwhile, and as an aside, I’ve picked up a few books at fantastic prices (and will get a few more before the day is up).

And now, the interlude coming to a conclusion, I’m off to the joint ASOR/SBL section mentioned previously.

When you get up in the morning for the second day of a meeting in Atlanta you aren’t really expecting to look out the window and see snow falling with great haste. But that’s what’s happening here today.  So I ran down and photographed the car with the snow collecting on it.  It didn’t last long and even as I write has long been melted off.  I also took photos of the first session and have uploaded them all here for viewing at one go.

Next comes the business session for the SBL and then the afternoon session.  I’m attending the ASOR/SBL Archaeology and the Ancient World session with papers on ‘Omride Israel’, ‘Israel Finkelstein at Beth Shemesh’ (the paper is on him, not by him), and finally ‘Herod’s Harbor’ .  It looks to be a fun session with lots of minimalism v. maximalism stuff (or so I’m guessing- I’ll let you know).  More anon.